Are there any spread markets yet on the number of seats each party will win at the next general election?
I can't find any.
Thanks, Andy. Annoying, isn't it? It's a shame there isn't somewhere where those who believe that Labour will win by a landslide can invest their money accordingly so that I can take the other side.
Arguably, this by-election is more important for the next general election in England than it is for Scotland.
Really? How come? Not many SNP candidates in England. And neither Labour nor the Tory parties are representative of the ones in England.
Labour win and it sends a message to voters in England (and Wales) that Labour are capable of picking up seats in Scotland, thus reducing the risk of them having to do a deal with the SNP.
It's a tough thing for the average voter to calculate, so it would be a significant event.
In other words, Labour have adopted the exclusionist philosophy of the Tories, a doctrine of first and second class MPs?
No, The SNP want to break up the UK, voters in the rest of the UK would rather not have them in government in Westminster.
I woukd rather have any major group than tge SNP in power. It's not just that they want to break up tge UK. It's that they will actively govern against tge interests of a) the UK and b) the English. And also that they appear to be fucking nutters. I'm fairly agnostic on the matter of whether or not England or Scotland would be better off together or apart. I think a desire for Scottish independence a perfectly respectable position. But the SNP themselves are not to be trusted. Honestly, I'd rather have Corbyn in the cabinet than Sturgeon.
The eternal cry, why do the Scots keep voting for people that make me, a fine upstanding Englishman, feel uncomfortable. Next you'll be telling us we should be grateful for the wise, far seeing government that you impose upon us.
No, you should be grateful to the 55%.
Brexit, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and the unending shitshow of Tory government? Cheers guys.
That's democracy.
Only an idiot would suggest that gratitude was in any way connected to democracy.
Are there any spread markets yet on the number of seats each party will win at the next general election?
I can't find any.
Thanks, Andy. Annoying, isn't it? It's a shame there isn't somewhere where those who believe that Labour will win by a landslide can invest their money accordingly so that I can take the other side.
I don't think I would make any bets this early myself.
Unlikely to achieve 60% with 45 on the ticket, regardless of VP.
But DJT-RFKjr would stir the pot, though the pain might outweigh the gain. However, same obviously true of Trump!
Another question: Bannon thinks it's a peachy keen idea, however am WAY less sure that actual Republicans will concur.
Starting with Tim Scott . . .
. . .from the Way-Back Machine:
In 1864, Abraham Lincoln was re-nominated by Republicans for POTUS, but incumbent VP Hannibal Hamilin was skipped over, in favor of "War Democrat" Andrew Johnson; Lincoln & Johnson then ran as "Union" ticket, and were elected over Democratic nominees, George McClellan, also a War Democrat, and George Pendleton, a "Peace Democrat".
I say go back to the system wherein the runner up becomes VP to the winner, that sounds hilarious with the modern party system.
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
It's hard to find work teaching English in a British school if you are not a native speaker. As a private tutor it might just be possible if you could find the right market. A problem is that a student doesn't need to be brilliant in order to get the top grade in GCSE Eng Lang or Eng Lit or A Level Eng Lit.
TEN BEST DEATH CAMPS/SITES OF MASS EXTERMINATION (that I’ve visited)
In reverse order
10. Srebrenica 9. That village in France 8. Solovetsky islands 7. Kamanets Podolskiy 6. St Petersburg in toto 5. Teotihuacan 4. Tuol sleng 3. Japanese occupied China 2. Cheoung Ek
And yet again. For the 78th year running. Still way out in front. The death camp that “has it all”. The nation’s favourite
1. Auschwitz
Probably won’t ever be beaten?
9. is Oradour-sur-Glane, never just 'that village in France' please.
And, the most disturbing thing about Oradour? The fact that it stands out as an atrocity in France.
In Eastern Europe, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of Oradour's, and in most cases, only the locals remember them.
That's fair. It's a moving and instructive place to visit though.
The level of cruelty in the East defies belief. Count Tolstoy gave Harold Macmillan and Lord Aldington lot of stick over the repatriations at Klagenfurt and Bleiburg.
After reading about the activities of SS Cossacks, and the Ustasha, I think the British Army showed immense restraint not to shoot them on the spot.
Where I’ve just been. Kamanets Podilskyi. How many people have heard of it?
Yet it was the first big Aktion of the Final Solution. In just two days the einsatzgruppen marched 23,000 Jews to bomb craters at the edge of town, and forced them to strip and then shot them dead. Piling the corpses like layer cakes. Line after line after line
23,000. In 2 days. How do you even do that? I wonder if auschwitz at full blast could kill that many in 48 hours
You almost sound excited...
No. But it is fascinating in a satanically macabre way
I just checked. Auschwitz could NOT kill 23,000 in 2 days. At the very height of the Holocaust it is thought maybe 15,000 were dying every day - but that’s all the death camps working together. Auschwitz plus Belzec and Sobibor etc
The Americans managed to kill 70,000 people in Hiroshima in a few seconds. I know it is not a death camp but the killing rate is equivalent to more than 600 million people per day. Since your list is titled "Mass extermination" Hiroshima should be No.1
Agreed. And it's scary to see people like John von Neumann (who did the maths to calculate the right height above Nagasaki at which to explode the nuclear weapon in order to maximise the damage) and Robert Oppenheimer lauded as heroes.
Mass murder is only "fascinating in a satanically macabre way" for a sick arsehole.
Leon, you'll probably get off on the "Serb cutter" knife used in Jasenovac concentration camp, including by Petar Brzica, who is said to have murdered 1360 prisoners in one night. (They had a contest.) Goodness knows what his real score was. Does it matter? They had a competition to see who could murder the most prisoners. That does matter.
Mass murder tourism is vile and reminiscent of the character R M Renfield in Dracula who feeds flies to spiders, and spiders to birds, and then wants to get a cat.
Jasenovac. Bloody hell. I did not expect the expression "markedly worse than Auschwitz" to have any real-world application before I read that.
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
Sounds tricky to me assuming the family have no British links.
We’ve brought in employees from former Soviet states in recent years but the sponsored visa is key, and they take time.
Much easier I assume to go somewhere like Armenia or Azerbaijan, Turkey, maybe UAE. In the EU given fathers business perhaps Cyprus.
"No British links"? Even though "the family" - mom, dad, sister, niece - are related to a British citizen?
Perhaps not ENOUGH linkage for powers-that-be. But hardly zero.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Not one recent UK poll has the Tories on 23%, yet the most recent Scotland only poll has the SNP 10% down on 35%
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Not one recent UK poll has the Tories on 23%, yet the most recent Scotland only poll has the SNP 10% down on 35%
There was one poll in the last month that had the Tories on 22%.
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
Sounds tricky to me assuming the family have no British links.
We’ve brought in employees from former Soviet states in recent years but the sponsored visa is key, and they take time.
Much easier I assume to go somewhere like Armenia or Azerbaijan, Turkey, maybe UAE. In the EU given fathers business perhaps Cyprus.
"No British links"? Even though "the family" - mom, dad, sister, niece - are related to a British citizen?
Perhaps not ENOUGH linkage for powers-that-be. But hardly zero.
Yes, I mean no official British status or passport. I don’t think parent and sibling gives you any kind of prioritisation, unlike spouse.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Not one recent UK poll has the Tories on 23%, yet the most recent Scotland only poll has the SNP 10% down on 35%
There was one poll in the last month that had the Tories on 22%.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Not one recent UK poll has the Tories on 23%, yet the most recent Scotland only poll has the SNP 10% down on 35%
Look guys, we gotta very shootable fish wriggling in a barrel!
Most 'recent' Scotland only poll 1-2 July, SNP 35% Not one 'recent' UK poll has the Tories on 23%, it's actually 22% on 5th-6th July
I'd be happy with a strong SNP performance. I want Tory seats in Scotland to be minimised at the GE.
A weak SNP is good news for the Tories.
Interesting! This suggests you are far from confident of Labour forming the next government. I think your pessimism is misplaced.
In any case, a strong showing from the SNP would send a message to England that Labour can't be relied upon to weaken the SNP and thus reduce the possibility of the SNP ending up in government.
Of course Labour have only got into government with English votes since WW2 twice, in 1997 and 1945.
In 1964 and Feb 1974 Wilson needed Scottish and Welsh Labour seats and votes, Home and Heath won a majority of seats in England.
Starmer is more Wilson in style than Blair 1997, perhaps Rishi will get closer than expected like his fellow Toff Sir Alec?
That is some amazing spinning. In 2001 Labour won almost twice as many seats as the Tories did in England. But maybe that doesn't count as getting "into" government and 323 isn't a majority anyway even if the Tories only achieved 165 and therefore your statements are technically correct. But the idea that Labour victories have in the past depended on overwhelming support in Scotland and Wales is often overstated.
I don't know whether your final para is ironic. Rishi Sunak isn't a toff. He may be an out of touch twat who doesn't have a clue about how ordinary people live their lives (the last Tory leader who may possibly have had a clue was John Major) but that doesn't make him a toff.
In 2001 Labour were the incumbent government yes not the opposition like 1997.
Rishi is a Winchester and Oxford educated ex Goldman Sachs banker and son in law of a billionaire.
Only in the sense that he is not an aristocrat like Home is Rishi not a Toff. Most voters would certainly consider Rishi a Toff
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Not one recent UK poll has the Tories on 23%, yet the most recent Scotland only poll has the SNP 10% down on 35%
Look guys, we gotta very shootable fish wriggling in a barrel!
most 'recent' Scotland only poll 1-2 July, SNP 35% Not one 'recent' UK poll has the Tories on 23%, it's actually 22% on 5th-6th July
Just to add that, since the polls are to zero dp and the Tories got 43.6% in the 2019 GE (44% rounded), the poll we are looking for is one with the Tories on 24%. Which is the, oh, way back a fortnight ago 14–17 Jul Deltapoll.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Not one recent UK poll has the Tories on 23%, yet the most recent Scotland only poll has the SNP 10% down on 35%
Look guys, we gotta very shootable fish wriggling in a barrel!
most 'recent' Scotland only poll 1-2 July, SNP 35% Not one 'recent' UK poll has the Tories on 23%, it's actually 22% on 5th-6th July
Just to add that, since the polls are to zero dp and the Tories got 43.6% (44% rounded) in the 2019 GE, the poll we are looking for is one with the Tories on 24%. Which is the, oh, way back a fortnight ago 14–17 Jul Deltapoll.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.4 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
This is of course something of a problem if you are trying to commute into or around almost any medium sized city. For instance even in cycle friendly Oxfordshire, there's no rational (or in some cases no full stop) route which will wholly avoid 50+mph limit roads and get you from Eynsham to Oxford, or Botley to Kidlington, or Islip to Headington, or Abingdon to Berinsfield, or Long Hanborough to Woodstock. None of these are Tour de France level lycra challenges, they should all be completely normal commuter options.
Interesting he has to remind his audience who their favourite president is.
Even he cannot believe they waited to indict him so that it was during his campaign, given that has only complicated matters for them and tactically it would have made sense to remove him from the board the earlier the better, but interesting that he is unintentionally agreeing with Democrats who think he should have been charged sooner.
He needs a fresh nickname for Jack Smith though, just going with deranged every time is dull. And whilst I'm sure there is good reason for the delays, and he is building on the work of others, Smith has seemed to work fast since his appointment.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as the Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
Almost as unpopular? Lol.
So SNP still about 10% down on average on the 45% they got in 2019
And the leperous Tories around 20% down.
No, most polls have the Tories on 25 to 30% not 23%
Well, if you want to be picky, if you average the SNP numbers from the list Theuniondivvie provided you get 37.1%, so the SNP are down 7.9% on their 2019 result.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Not one recent UK poll has the Tories on 23%, yet the most recent Scotland only poll has the SNP 10% down on 35%
Look guys, we gotta very shootable fish wriggling in a barrel!
most 'recent' Scotland only poll 1-2 July, SNP 35% Not one 'recent' UK poll has the Tories on 23%, it's actually 22% on 5th-6th July
Just to add that, since the polls are to zero dp and the Tories got 43.6% (44% rounded) in the 2019 GE, the poll we are looking for is one with the Tories on 24%. Which is the, oh, way back a fortnight ago 14–17 Jul Deltapoll.
20% less would be 23.6% not 24%
Actually, it would be 23.62593244041460%. Unlikely to find a poll to match that tbh.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.4 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
I'm not taking sides in this. But it appears to really piss off Highways England when people use their network for journeys of one or two junctions. Indeed, it seems to annoy them when anyone joins or leaves their network at all. Things would move much more smoothly for them if all traffic on the network just moved around it.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
Just prior to that. Molly Gaston, a prosecutor detailed to the special counsel, handed up a single sealed indictment and received permission to issue a summons. No names or initials provided. https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1686485089578897408
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.4 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
I'm not taking sides in this. But it appears to really piss off Highways England when people use their network for journeys of one or two junctions. Indeed, it seems to annoy them when anyone joins or leaves their network at all. Things would move much more smoothly for them if all traffic on the network just moved around it.
Indeed, its a bit like Yes, Minister where they want a hospital with no patients.
Getting on and off the network makes perfect sense.
I just checked the route I take to take my kids to school, most of which as I said is 50mph. As I suspected, the 50mph that makes most of the route is a B road, which again means its excluded from the bullshit dodgy data that Miklosvar is trying to spread.
Gee, if you exclude all fast moving roads from the data, then suddenly cars don't move fast. In other news if you exclude all weekdays from the week, the week is only made of weekend.
Today I learned that there's a precident for running for President whist in prison.
Eugene V. Debs was in an Atlanta penitentiary, serving a ten-year sentence for sedition, when he stood in the 1920 presidential election. Got over 900,000 votes
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
It is tricky, particularly in the current toxic environment to people seeking asylum (a place of safety). They might well be on their way to Rwanda or a barge in Portland very quickly.
I have a friend, born in Siberia who managed it over the years, and I signed off her British passport a few years back. It is a real honour to be asked to be a referee on these applications. I have done several now.
She managed it by means of setting up a joint research project with our Prof in the UK, then registered as a PG student. That allowed her to bring her husband and kids as dependents. That worked to get the family established. Both then managed to move to work visas in areas recognised as shortage occupations, with no UK or EU applicants for their posts. Then it was a matter of 5 years residence and passing the Life in the UK Test. He then brought over his parents, not quite sure how. The whole move was legit, but now 7 Brits of Russian heritage, albeit a 10 year project.
They all live happily on the South Coast now, and are quite anti-Putin, though it took me a long time to find that out. Russians are quite reticent at discussing their home life and politics, that being how their families wound up in Siberia in the first place.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.4 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
I'm not taking sides in this. But it appears to really piss off Highways England when people use their network for journeys of one or two junctions. Indeed, it seems to annoy them when anyone joins or leaves their network at all. Things would move much more smoothly for them if all traffic on the network just moved around it.
The indentations going completely off the RHS of my screen are the Red Flag to stay out !
So I will just continue dropping my pearls of wisdom in other threads, secure in the expectation that in 10-15 years time there will be more cycle and less car, a far better network of mobility infra, 20,000 fewer unlawful access barriers blocking our footpaths, medical confirmation of eyesight for drivers over 80 not self-certification, fewer people driving using their hand-held mobile phones, a drink-drive limit of half of what it now (at last), and some sort of heavy regulation of monstrous 4x4s.
And so to bed, dreaming about a civilised road culture in the UK.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the first criminal charges to emerge from a sprawling federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Mr. Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States
Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the first criminal charges to emerge from a sprawling federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Mr. Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States
NY Times
Good.
Nobody should be above the law. Not even a President, or former President.
Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the first criminal charges to emerge from a sprawling federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Mr. Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States
NY Times
Good.
Nobody should be above the law. Not even a President, or former President.
At least he'll get his day (or more probably years) in court, which the lynch mobs he incited wanted to deny to Mike Pence.
"A social media influencer who extolled the virtues of a vegan diet of raw tropical fruit has died, reportedly of malnutrition, exhaustion and infections." (Telegraph)
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
The data allows us to reach an approximation.
The averaged product of the distance travelled data tables and the free flow average speed data tables suggests an average speed in free-flowing traffic of 51mph for all car journeys.
The statistic that of 600 hours spent driving per year for the average motorist, 100 of those hours are lost to traffic, tells us we should multiply that by 51 by 500 to get the total distance travelled, and divide it by 600 to get the average speed including traffic delays.
That suggests the average motorist travels at an average speed of 42.5mph.
"A social media influencer who extolled the virtues of a vegan diet of raw tropical fruit has died, reportedly of malnutrition, exhaustion and infections." (Telegraph)
Darwin Award??
She passed away all too early, just days away from her 103 birthday.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
The data allows us to reach an approximation.
The averaged product of the distance travelled data tables and the free flow average speed data tables suggests an average speed in free-flowing traffic of 51mph for all car journeys.
The statistic that of 600 hours spent driving per year for the average motorist, 100 of those hours are lost to traffic, tells us we should multiply that by 51 by 500 to get the total distance travelled, and divide it by 600 to get the average speed including traffic delays.
That suggests the average motorist travels at an average speed of 42.5mph.
Maybe we need to invert this argument to help BR understand.
If all of us followed BR's example, and stopped cycling, walking, or using the bus or train to get to work, what would happen to traffic?
Would it get better? Or would it get worse? Would average motoring speeds get faster, or slower?
In Edinburgh, that's 174,000 people. We know about 75% of cars are single occupant, so that coverts to around 150,000 extra cars, in addition to 90,000 at the moment. An increase in traffic of 165%.
Even in rural Moray, there are about 25,000 people who don't drive, converting to around 22,000 extra cars. That's on top of 23,000 cars at the moment. An increase in traffic of about 95%.
It would require mammoth road building projects, to the cost of billions of pounds, to induce that kind of demand. Is that BR's policy?
O/T @Tims, re our discussion yesterday, the Met Office have now cautiously modified their view of the second half of August to:
During the second half of August, there is a greater chance of more settled spells developing, with warmer and drier conditions becoming slightly more likely than the unseasonably unsettled weather of July. However, unsettled conditions are never too far away and so there will likely still be some spells of rain or showers for many areas from time to time. Temperatures look like they will recover to at least average, or a little above, however any prolonged dry or hot spells appear to be unlikely.
Sounds about right. The ensembles are still showing the same - not a month of wall to wall sunshine but certainly a big improvement.
Even further off topic but in the spirit of Leon’s earlier incarnation as Michael Portillo battlefields and castles, I have an industrial history recommendation. I’m spending the week working from an Airbnb rental in Cromford in Derbyshire, for reasons too complicated to go into here. It’s a fascinating place: the Derwent valley, cradle of the Industrial Revolution. Richard Arkwright built arguably the world’s first proper factory here in the 1780s, then built the village to house the workers.
We do industrial heritage very well in Britain. Derwent Valley, Beamish, Ironbridge, the Black Country museum, Chatham dockyard, all really worthwhile places to visit. This one’s a revelation to me. There’s no way I’d be spending a summer week in the Derby Dales we’re it not for family exigencies taking us up to the North midlands and a cancelled holiday in Georgia on account of broken ribs (todays the day we were due to be driving up to Kazbegi in the Caucasus).
If you are in Cromford, MAKE SURE YOU VISIT THE SECONDHAND BOOKSHOP SCARTHIN BOOKS and TAYLOR-WILDE the chocolatier (they drive Morgan type sports cars, including if it is running a glorious 3-wheeler called a Triking, which is like a Morgan 3 wheeler but properly engineered). The bookshop goes on forever.
Sorry for shouting, but they are musts,
Also a surprising number of vineyards.
I'm just drinking a wine called Mills & Hills Bacchus, which winery in the Derwent Valley has just joined Naked Wines. The NW chap says one of their perks is arranging vineyard visits, so I'm looking forward to that.
Today I learned that there's a precident for running for President whist in prison.
Eugene V. Debs was in an Atlanta penitentiary, serving a ten-year sentence for sedition, when he stood in the 1920 presidential election. Got over 900,000 votes
Given the United States was founded on sedition, it's a wonder it's not more common.
Actually anything Trump was indicted on today could be said about Jefferson, Washington, Adams and any of the other tax-dodging, slave-owning traitors: defrauding the government, obstructing official proceedings, etc.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
The data allows us to reach an approximation.
The averaged product of the distance travelled data tables and the free flow average speed data tables suggests an average speed in free-flowing traffic of 51mph for all car journeys.
The statistic that of 600 hours spent driving per year for the average motorist, 100 of those hours are lost to traffic, tells us we should multiply that by 51 by 500 to get the total distance travelled, and divide it by 600 to get the average speed including traffic delays.
That suggests the average motorist travels at an average speed of 42.5mph.
Maybe we need to invert this argument to help BR understand.
If all of us followed BR's example, and stopped cycling, walking, or using the bus or train to get to work, what would happen to traffic?
Would it get better? Or would it get worse? Would average motoring speeds get faster, or slower?
In Edinburgh, that's 174,000 people. We know about 75% of cars are single occupant, so that coverts to around 150,000 extra cars, in addition to 90,000 at the moment. An increase in traffic of 165%.
Even in rural Moray, there are about 25,000 people who don't drive, converting to around 22,000 extra cars. That's on top of 23,000 cars at the moment. An increase in traffic of about 95%.
It would require mammoth road building projects, to the cost of billions of pounds, to induce that kind of demand. Is that BR's policy?
Just in terms of space - those additional cars in Edinburgh are equivalent to a traffic jam 426 miles long!
Off topic, but about elections: Today is election day in Washington state. Sort of. It is the last day you can submit your mailed ballot for the primary. (You can take it to a post office (as I did), or drop it in a "drop box". Or, you can vote in person at a few sites.)
In my part of the state -- an eastside suburb of Seattle -- there aren't many interesting contests. But there are in Seattle, where the city council may change. There are a number of ways to describe the contest; I see it as an effort by pragmatic leftists to oust a failed far-left majority on the city council.
A local Seattle Times columnist described it as a fight between "liberal" factions. (I will omit his name for the moment in order to protect the guilty.) Since the the far-left faction includes a Trotskyite (Kshama Sawant), calling them "liberals" seems a bit of a stretch to me.
(Sawant isn't running, but, as I understand it, instead is planning to take her act national.)
I don't follow Seattle politics closely enough to tell you more. I hope SSI2 will share his knowledge as the results come in.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
The data allows us to reach an approximation.
The averaged product of the distance travelled data tables and the free flow average speed data tables suggests an average speed in free-flowing traffic of 51mph for all car journeys.
The statistic that of 600 hours spent driving per year for the average motorist, 100 of those hours are lost to traffic, tells us we should multiply that by 51 by 500 to get the total distance travelled, and divide it by 600 to get the average speed including traffic delays.
That suggests the average motorist travels at an average speed of 42.5mph.
Maybe we need to invert this argument to help BR understand.
If all of us followed BR's example, and stopped cycling, walking, or using the bus or train to get to work, what would happen to traffic?
Would it get better? Or would it get worse? Would average motoring speeds get faster, or slower?
In Edinburgh, that's 174,000 people. We know about 75% of cars are single occupant, so that coverts to around 150,000 extra cars, in addition to 90,000 at the moment. An increase in traffic of 165%.
Even in rural Moray, there are about 25,000 people who don't drive, converting to around 22,000 extra cars. That's on top of 23,000 cars at the moment. An increase in traffic of about 95%.
It would require mammoth road building projects, to the cost of billions of pounds, to induce that kind of demand. Is that BR's policy?
My policy would be to spend about a trillion, if not hundreds of billions on expanding and improving our road infrastructure over the next decade. Improving our infrastructure is one of the primary things the Government should be doing.
Considering 90% of transportation happens on the roads, we should be spending 10x what we spend on everything else on our road network and we are spending hundreds of billions on rail projects, so why not trillions on the roads? Creating new arteries would result in a tremendous return on investment and unlock great growth potential.
I've never advocated everyone stops doing anything other than driving, that's bonkers and a windmill you're tilting at as its not my position at all. My position is we should have the infrastructure to cope with all modes of transportation, but that driving is for people in towns by far the most efficient. But not everyone is going to drive. I don't drive every journey. If I'm going to the pub I walk, because its (a) in walking distance and (b) I don't drink and drive.
If I'm going to the Co-Op, I walk.
If I'm going to the park, I walk.
If I'm travelling a distance, I drive. As do 90% of others travelling.
Induced demand is bullshit, given walking will always exist, cars, vans etc on roads already account for 90% of travel distance, you can't induce demand far above 90% anyway. What you can do is is improve capacity - and extra demand comes from population growth not from being "induced".
Today I learned that there's a precident for running for President whist in prison.
Eugene V. Debs was in an Atlanta penitentiary, serving a ten-year sentence for sedition, when he stood in the 1920 presidential election. Got over 900,000 votes
Today I learned that there's a precident for running for President whist in prison.
Eugene V. Debs was in an Atlanta penitentiary, serving a ten-year sentence for sedition, when he stood in the 1920 presidential election. Got over 900,000 votes
Given the United States was founded on sedition, it's a wonder it's not more common.
Actually anything Trump was indicted on today could be said about Jefferson, Washington, Adams and any of the other tax-dodging, slave-owning traitors: defrauding the government, obstructing official proceedings, etc.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
As news of Trump's latest indictment for trying to subvert 2020 election was breaking, yours truly was casting my 2024 WA State Primary ballot.
Deadline is 8pm today if returned via ballot drop box, or postmarked today if returned via USPS.
Which is how I'm returning mine, via slot at my friend neighborhood post office.
Looked to make sure time was before next mail pickup (discussed earlier in UK context) to ensure that my ballot is received by election authorities in timely manner.
Only four things for me to vote on in August 2023
> King County "Veterans, Seniors and Families" low-income housing levy, which should pass pretty easily.
> King County Councilmember for my district; incumbent is not running, so seat is open, three on ballot with Top Two vote-getters advancing to general election
> Port of Seattle Commissioner, elected countywide, featuring incumbent and two challengers, with Top Two, with the moderate environmental incumbent highly likely to make the Top Two and also win in the Fall.
> Seattle City Council district member for my district, with incumbent and host of challengers, but will come down to incumbent, a progressive, and his main challenger, moderate backed by Chamber of Commerce.
As of just past noon today, ballots reported returned countywide = just over 285k of nearly 1.4m (22.7%)
Projected turnout countywide = 30% or about 415k, meaning that roughly 2/3 of anticipated ballots cast, are already returned.
First partial, unofficial returns will be posted this evening after 8pm, by King and other WA counties. With whats on the ballot a few judicial races, the rest local (county, city, school and special district) offices and measures (almost all taxes).
Induced demand is bullshit, given walking will always exist, cars, vans etc on roads already account for 90% of travel distance, you can't induce demand far above 90% anyway. What you can do is is improve capacity - and extra demand comes from population growth not from being "induced".
Only 71% of commuters use a car or van (as drive or passenger) as their primary mode of travel to work (per Census 2021) so I'm thinking you could very easily induce a higher level than that - not least as you might also induce people to choose jobs further away, or drive their kids to schools further away rather than put them on the bus, walk them, or buy them bikes. Or drive to the big supermarket rather than go to the local one, etc etc.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
The data allows us to reach an approximation.
The averaged product of the distance travelled data tables and the free flow average speed data tables suggests an average speed in free-flowing traffic of 51mph for all car journeys.
The statistic that of 600 hours spent driving per year for the average motorist, 100 of those hours are lost to traffic, tells us we should multiply that by 51 by 500 to get the total distance travelled, and divide it by 600 to get the average speed including traffic delays.
That suggests the average motorist travels at an average speed of 42.5mph.
Maybe we need to invert this argument to help BR understand.
If all of us followed BR's example, and stopped cycling, walking, or using the bus or train to get to work, what would happen to traffic?
Would it get better? Or would it get worse? Would average motoring speeds get faster, or slower?
In Edinburgh, that's 174,000 people. We know about 75% of cars are single occupant, so that coverts to around 150,000 extra cars, in addition to 90,000 at the moment. An increase in traffic of 165%.
Even in rural Moray, there are about 25,000 people who don't drive, converting to around 22,000 extra cars. That's on top of 23,000 cars at the moment. An increase in traffic of about 95%.
It would require mammoth road building projects, to the cost of billions of pounds, to induce that kind of demand. Is that BR's policy?
My policy would be to spend about a trillion, if not hundreds of billions on expanding and improving our road infrastructure over the next decade. Improving our infrastructure is one of the primary things the Government should be doing.
Considering 90% of transportation happens on the roads, we should be spending 10x what we spend on everything else on our road network and we are spending hundreds of billions on rail projects, so why not trillions on the roads? Creating new arteries would result in a tremendous return on investment and unlock great growth potential.
I've never advocated everyone stops doing anything other than driving, that's bonkers and a windmill you're tilting at as its not my position at all. My position is we should have the infrastructure to cope with all modes of transportation, but that driving is for people in towns by far the most efficient. But not everyone is going to drive. I don't drive every journey. If I'm going to the pub I walk, because its (a) in walking distance and (b) I don't drink and drive.
If I'm going to the Co-Op, I walk.
If I'm going to the park, I walk.
If I'm travelling a distance, I drive. As do 90% of others travelling.
Induced demand is bullshit, given walking will always exist, cars, vans etc on roads already account for 90% of travel distance, you can't induce demand far above 90% anyway. What you can do is is improve capacity - and extra demand comes from population growth not from being "induced".
Fair enough! £1 trillion on roads. Just don't expect anyone to believe you or vote for that, particularly when images like this exist - a brand new highway in Egypt (they put a bridge over the beach!):
Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the first criminal charges to emerge from a sprawling federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Mr. Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States
NY Times
Good.
Nobody should be above the law. Not even a President, or former President.
At least he'll get his day (or more probably years) in court
Not if he wins the election he won't, not on these Federal ones at least.
Cycling is a fun recreation, I do it myself recreationally, and if anyone wants to travel by cycling good for them, but its not remotely efficient and is a piss in the ocean compared to driving when it comes to transportation.
If all cycling were to be stopped overnight, that would be 1% added to car travel and sub 1% added to road travel. So lets not pretend cycling is significant, it is miniscule. Absolutely go for it if you want, I'm pro-choice and I want you to have that option, but lets not pretend it is relevant or credible or "efficient".
Cars, vans and taxis make up over 90% of total travel. Roads make up over 92% of total travel.
If you want to improve infrastructure, start by building more roads. And you won't "induce demand" since you can't induce much beyond 90% anyway.
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
It's hard to find work teaching English in a British school if you are not a native speaker. As a private tutor it might just be possible if you could find the right market. A problem is that a student doesn't need to be brilliant in order to get the top grade in GCSE Eng Lang or Eng Lit or A Level Eng Lit.
Posh schools often teach Russian (and Chinese) although maybe pupil demand has dropped in light of recent events. Dura Ace is in the Russian tutoring business aiui.
BlancheLivermore's Siberian friend seems to be British so should be all right to come here but the rest of the family looks a bit remote, not being dependants. In the first instance, she should ask the British Embassy in Moscow or Siberia about the chance of getting visas. Immigration lawyers have been in the news recently but I doubt they come cheap and you could wake up and find yourself in the Daily Mail.
Cycling is a fun recreation, I do it myself recreationally, and if anyone wants to travel by cycling good for them, but its not remotely efficient and is a piss in the ocean compared to driving when it comes to transportation.
If all cycling were to be stopped overnight, that would be 1% added to car travel and sub 1% added to road travel. So lets not pretend cycling is significant, it is miniscule. Absolutely go for it if you want, I'm pro-choice and I want you to have that option, but lets not pretend it is relevant or credible or "efficient".
Cars, vans and taxis make up over 90% of total travel. Roads make up over 92% of total travel.
If you want to improve infrastructure, start by building more roads. And you won't "induce demand" since you can't induce much beyond 90% anyway.
I'm just suggesting that you express some gratitude to those of us who free up space on the roads for drivers like you
I had a look at the data and set it above. Even in rural areas, a very large proportion of commuters don't use a car to get around. Thanks be.
At first skim, not especially legal language. I wonder if Trump supporters will read it and shrug it off.
There were some Republicans who started out against him and have stayed that way, whilst most others held their noses. Some more have turned against him over things like January 6th, or because they worked in his Cabinet and seem to have realised he's completely barmy.
But things seem pretty consistent with the base suppoters (and a still growing number in congress) that they believe him when he says the deep state or whatever is after him, which just makes any legal action play into that narrative.
I do get those running against him had to bear that in mind, but from the very start it was ridiculous that they'd spend their time defending Trump's legal woes but still claim to be against him, and so it has played out - the no hopers can criticise him, those who dreamed of picking up the baton from him cannot, and row in behind him with varying degrees of enthusiasm, making their running pointless other than hoping he has a heart attack and they can pick up his supporters.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
Induced demand is bullshit, given walking will always exist, cars, vans etc on roads already account for 90% of travel distance, you can't induce demand far above 90% anyway. What you can do is is improve capacity - and extra demand comes from population growth not from being "induced".
Only 71% of commuters use a car or van (as drive or passenger) as their primary mode of travel to work (per Census 2021) so I'm thinking you could very easily induce a higher level than that - not least as you might also induce people to choose jobs further away, or drive their kids to schools further away rather than put them on the bus, walk them, or buy them bikes. Or drive to the big supermarket rather than go to the local one, etc etc.
Actually, that might be an argument in favour of Bart's proposals. Increasing commuting distances is a factor in revitalising the North. This was the main reason for Northern Powerhouse Rail (since abandoned).
At first skim, not especially legal language. I wonder if Trump supporters will read it and shrug it off.
Reminds me of the old campaign slogan of Lyndon Larouche -
"The only candidate Bush [the Elder] fears enough to put in jail"
Switching gears if not tracks (or maybe other way around?) have been thinking, what IF Nicola Sturgeon had NOT resigned, but instead dared the coppers to do their worst? Then proclaimed she was victim of sinister British-Tory-Labour-Masonic-Etc-Etc Conspiracy!
Heck, a Big Fish like Sturgeon might could STILL pull it off . . . or least give it a go. Or could she?
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
I think the documents case is set for March next year, after he'll already have won a bunch of primaries, and I assume the courts don't like queue jumping, so presumably this and any later indictments will be after that, or delayed even further.
With politically appointed judges opponents must have a field day. I recall in one of the lawsuits Trump filed his team tried to get the judge to recuse on the basis they'd be appointed by Clinton due to alleged bias, but I imagine he has not argued about judges appointed by him (though of course plenty of those ruled against many of his spurious legal challenges before!)
At first skim, not especially legal language. I wonder if Trump supporters will read it and shrug it off.
Reminds me of the old campaign slogan of Lyndon Larouche -
"The only candidate Bush [the Elder] fears enough to put in jail"
Switching gears if not tracks (or maybe other way around?) have been thinking, what IF Nicola Sturgeon had NOT resigned, but instead dared the coppers to do their worst? Then proclaimed she was victim of sinister British-Tory-Labour-Masonic-Etc-Etc Conspiracy!
Heck, a Big Fish like Sturgeon might could STILL pull it off . . . or least give it a go. Or could she?
Well of course her resigning had nothing to do with the subsequent legal woes, she assured us of that.
(I actually doubt anyone will be convicted as a result of that investigation)
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
As news of Trump's latest indictment for trying to subvert 2020 election was breaking, yours truly was casting my 2024 WA State Primary ballot.
Deadline is 8pm today if returned via ballot drop box, or postmarked today if returned via USPS.
Which is how I'm returning mine, via slot at my friend neighborhood post office.
Looked to make sure time was before next mail pickup (discussed earlier in UK context) to ensure that my ballot is received by election authorities in timely manner.
Only four things for me to vote on in August 2023
> King County "Veterans, Seniors and Families" low-income housing levy, which should pass pretty easily.
> King County Councilmember for my district; incumbent is not running, so seat is open, three on ballot with Top Two vote-getters advancing to general election
> Port of Seattle Commissioner, elected countywide, featuring incumbent and two challengers, with Top Two, with the moderate environmental incumbent highly likely to make the Top Two and also win in the Fall.
> Seattle City Council district member for my district, with incumbent and host of challengers, but will come down to incumbent, a progressive, and his main challenger, moderate backed by Chamber of Commerce.
As of just past noon today, ballots reported returned countywide = just over 285k of nearly 1.4m (22.7%)
Projected turnout countywide = 30% or about 415k, meaning that roughly 2/3 of anticipated ballots cast, are already returned.
First partial, unofficial returns will be posted this evening after 8pm, by King and other WA counties. With whats on the ballot a few judicial races, the rest local (county, city, school and special district) offices and measures (almost all taxes).
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Brazil is probably looking at the Trump business and wondering what's taken so long.
Then again, their rules did actually prevent a candidate likely to win from running from jail before, but then reversed it all anyway so who the hell knows.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Particularly for commutes, which tend to be very short indeed.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
I recall one of the craziest Trump inspired lawsuits, I think in Pennsylvania, off the basis of entirely unproven allegations was seeking relief in the form of disenfranchising millions of voters. Which as the appeals court noted, even if there were some issues, would be a massively disproprotionate and unprecedented response. And rather made the point being to exclude the bits they didn't like rather obvious.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
Well in the hamlet we now live in walking takes over four times as long to a useful place as driving and public transport not much better. In rural areas for most to get to work, their children to school, go to the shops, the doctors, a station etc a car is vital
Comments
Labour 48% SNP 37%
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1686424810744696843?t=KWQgx_S_WZxtMsS3RF_3EA&s=19
Perhaps not ENOUGH linkage for powers-that-be. But hardly zero.
For the Tories the poll average is 26.4%, so down 17.2% on their 2019 result.
And for Labour, the equivalent is 45.7%, up 13.6% on their 2019 result.
Con->Lab swing 15.4%.
You're welcome.
Does that not count as recent?
Most 'recent' Scotland only poll 1-2 July, SNP 35%
Not one 'recent' UK poll has the Tories on 23%, it's actually 22% on 5th-6th July
Rishi is a Winchester and Oxford educated ex Goldman Sachs banker and son in law of a billionaire.
Only in the sense that he is not an aristocrat like Home is Rishi not a Toff. Most voters would certainly consider Rishi a Toff
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.4 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
Even he cannot believe they waited to indict him so that it was during his campaign, given that has only complicated matters for them and tactically it would have made sense to remove him from the board the earlier the better, but interesting that he is unintentionally agreeing with Democrats who think he should have been charged sooner.
He needs a fresh nickname for Jack Smith though, just going with deranged every time is dull. And whilst I'm sure there is good reason for the delays, and he is building on the work of others, Smith has seemed to work fast since his appointment.
Trump 74 million votes
You are simply wrong. We can all consult
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/travel-time-measures-for-the-strategic-road-network-and-local-a-roads-january-to-december-2021
And go to
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/travel-time-measures-for-the-strategic-road-network-and-local-a-roads-january-to-december-2021/travel-time-measures-for-the-strategic-road-network-january-to-december-2021-report
And see that it says
On the SRN in 2021:
the average delay is estimated to be 8.5 seconds per vehicle per mile compared to speed limits, a 16.4% increase on the previous year
the average speed was 58.9 mph, down 1.8% from 2020
And for a definition of SRN, go to
https://nationalhighways.co.uk/our-roads/roads-we-manage/
And read
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1686485565976334336
Molly Gaston, a prosecutor detailed to the special counsel, handed up a single sealed indictment and received permission to issue a summons. No names or initials provided.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1686485089578897408
Getting on and off the network makes perfect sense.
I just checked the route I take to take my kids to school, most of which as I said is 50mph. As I suspected, the 50mph that makes most of the route is a B road, which again means its excluded from the bullshit dodgy data that Miklosvar is trying to spread.
Gee, if you exclude all fast moving roads from the data, then suddenly cars don't move fast. In other news if you exclude all weekdays from the week, the week is only made of weekend.
Eugene V. Debs was in an Atlanta penitentiary, serving a ten-year sentence for sedition, when he stood in the 1920 presidential election. Got over 900,000 votes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1686486946678202368
https://twitter.com/nate_cohn/status/1686336922061303808
I have a friend, born in Siberia who managed it over the years, and I signed off her British passport a few years back. It is a real honour to be asked to be a referee on these applications. I have done several now.
She managed it by means of setting up a joint research project with our Prof in the UK, then registered as a PG student. That allowed her to bring her husband and kids as dependents. That worked to get the family established. Both then managed to move to work visas in areas recognised as shortage occupations, with no UK or EU applicants for their posts. Then it was a matter of 5 years residence and passing the Life in the UK Test. He then brought over his parents, not quite sure how. The whole move was legit, but now 7 Brits of Russian heritage, albeit a 10 year project.
They all live happily on the South Coast now, and are quite anti-Putin, though it took me a long time to find that out. Russians are quite reticent at discussing their home life and politics, that being how their families wound up in Siberia in the first place.
This is not the sort of chart you want to see for a nice day out:
Do they stop at the first sign of a thunderstorm? I am not sure I know the rules on that.
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Thought you'd been made a Life Peer. And about time, too!
So I will just continue dropping my pearls of wisdom in other threads, secure in the expectation that in 10-15 years time there will be more cycle and less car, a far better network of mobility infra, 20,000 fewer unlawful access barriers blocking our footpaths, medical confirmation of eyesight for drivers over 80 not self-certification, fewer people driving using their hand-held mobile phones, a drink-drive limit of half of what it now (at last), and some sort of heavy regulation of monstrous 4x4s.
And so to bed, dreaming about a civilised road culture in the UK.
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Mr. Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States
NY Times
Nobody should be above the law. Not even a President, or former President.
NY Times
I hope she's a resilient character.
Darwin Award??
The averaged product of the distance travelled data tables and the free flow average speed data tables suggests an average speed in free-flowing traffic of 51mph for all car journeys.
The statistic that of 600 hours spent driving per year for the average motorist, 100 of those hours are lost to traffic, tells us we should multiply that by 51 by 500 to get the total distance travelled, and divide it by 600 to get the average speed including traffic delays.
That suggests the average motorist travels at an average speed of 42.5mph.
(For the avoidance of doubt, that was a joke.)
If all of us followed BR's example, and stopped cycling, walking, or using the bus or train to get to work, what would happen to traffic?
Would it get better? Or would it get worse? Would average motoring speeds get faster, or slower?
In Edinburgh, that's 174,000 people. We know about 75% of cars are single occupant, so that coverts to around 150,000 extra cars, in addition to 90,000 at the moment. An increase in traffic of 165%.
Even in rural Moray, there are about 25,000 people who don't drive, converting to around 22,000 extra cars. That's on top of 23,000 cars at the moment. An increase in traffic of about 95%.
It would require mammoth road building projects, to the cost of billions of pounds, to induce that kind of demand. Is that BR's policy?
Sorry for shouting, but they are musts,
Also a surprising number of vineyards.
I'm just drinking a wine called Mills & Hills Bacchus, which winery in the Derwent Valley has just joined Naked Wines. The NW chap says one of their perks is arranging vineyard visits, so I'm looking forward to that.
Sigh. It's also well-dressing season but I'm still largely locked-down.
Actually anything Trump was indicted on today could be said about Jefferson, Washington, Adams and any of the other tax-dodging, slave-owning traitors: defrauding the government, obstructing official proceedings, etc.
Inciting an insurrection is particularly ironic.
Those charged are the latest facing legal consequences for alleged crimes committed after embracing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/01/michigan-prosecutors-trump-allies-felonies-voting-machines-00109256
In my part of the state -- an eastside suburb of Seattle -- there aren't many interesting contests. But there are in Seattle, where the city council may change. There are a number of ways to describe the contest; I see it as an effort by pragmatic leftists to oust a failed far-left majority on the city council.
A local Seattle Times columnist described it as a fight between "liberal" factions. (I will omit his name for the moment in order to protect the guilty.) Since the the far-left faction includes a Trotskyite (Kshama Sawant), calling them "liberals" seems a bit of a stretch to me.
(Sawant isn't running, but, as I understand it, instead is planning to take her act national.)
I don't follow Seattle politics closely enough to tell you more. I hope SSI2 will share his knowledge as the results come in.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.1.0_1.pdf
At first skim, not especially legal language. I wonder if Trump supporters will read it and shrug it off.
Considering 90% of transportation happens on the roads, we should be spending 10x what we spend on everything else on our road network and we are spending hundreds of billions on rail projects, so why not trillions on the roads? Creating new arteries would result in a tremendous return on investment and unlock great growth potential.
I've never advocated everyone stops doing anything other than driving, that's bonkers and a windmill you're tilting at as its not my position at all. My position is we should have the infrastructure to cope with all modes of transportation, but that driving is for people in towns by far the most efficient. But not everyone is going to drive. I don't drive every journey. If I'm going to the pub I walk, because its (a) in walking distance and (b) I don't drink and drive.
If I'm going to the Co-Op, I walk.
If I'm going to the park, I walk.
If I'm travelling a distance, I drive. As do 90% of others travelling.
Induced demand is bullshit, given walking will always exist, cars, vans etc on roads already account for 90% of travel distance, you can't induce demand far above 90% anyway. What you can do is is improve capacity - and extra demand comes from population growth not from being "induced".
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
Deadline is 8pm today if returned via ballot drop box, or postmarked today if returned via USPS.
Which is how I'm returning mine, via slot at my friend neighborhood post office.
Looked to make sure time was before next mail pickup (discussed earlier in UK context) to ensure that my ballot is received by election authorities in timely manner.
Only four things for me to vote on in August 2023
> King County "Veterans, Seniors and Families" low-income housing levy, which should pass pretty easily.
> King County Councilmember for my district; incumbent is not running, so seat is open, three on ballot with Top Two vote-getters advancing to general election
> Port of Seattle Commissioner, elected countywide, featuring incumbent and two challengers, with Top Two, with the moderate environmental incumbent highly likely to make the Top Two and also win in the Fall.
> Seattle City Council district member for my district, with incumbent and host of challengers, but will come down to incumbent, a progressive, and his main challenger, moderate backed by Chamber of Commerce.
As of just past noon today, ballots reported returned countywide = just over 285k of nearly 1.4m (22.7%)
Projected turnout countywide = 30% or about 415k, meaning that roughly 2/3 of anticipated ballots cast, are already returned.
First partial, unofficial returns will be posted this evening after 8pm, by King and other WA counties. With whats on the ballot a few judicial races, the rest local (county, city, school and special district) offices and measures (almost all taxes).
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-statistics-great-britain-2022/transport-statistics-great-britain-2022-domestic-travel
Total passenger km travelled in the UK by mode.
Cars, vans and taxis: 738 bn km
Rail: 47bn km
Buses and Coaches: 18bn km [add this to cars, vans and taxis as needing roads]
Cycles: 7bn km
Other modes: 7bn km
If all cycling were to be stopped overnight, that would be 1% added to car travel and sub 1% added to road travel. So lets not pretend cycling is significant, it is miniscule. Absolutely go for it if you want, I'm pro-choice and I want you to have that option, but lets not pretend it is relevant or credible or "efficient".
Cars, vans and taxis make up over 90% of total travel.
Roads make up over 92% of total travel.
If you want to improve infrastructure, start by building more roads. And you won't "induce demand" since you can't induce much beyond 90% anyway.
BlancheLivermore's Siberian friend seems to be British so should be all right to come here but the rest of the family looks a bit remote, not being dependants. In the first instance, she should ask the British Embassy in Moscow or Siberia about the chance of getting visas. Immigration lawyers have been in the news recently but I doubt they come cheap and you could wake up and find yourself in the Daily Mail.
I had a look at the data and set it above. Even in rural areas, a very large proportion of commuters don't use a car to get around. Thanks be.
But things seem pretty consistent with the base suppoters (and a still growing number in congress) that they believe him when he says the deep state or whatever is after him, which just makes any legal action play into that narrative.
I do get those running against him had to bear that in mind, but from the very start it was ridiculous that they'd spend their time defending Trump's legal woes but still claim to be against him, and so it has played out - the no hopers can criticise him, those who dreamed of picking up the baton from him cannot, and row in behind him with varying degrees of enthusiasm, making their running pointless other than hoping he has a heart attack and they can pick up his supporters.
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads
L = Speed on Low Speed Roads
S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
"The only candidate Bush [the Elder] fears enough to put in jail"
Switching gears if not tracks (or maybe other way around?) have been thinking, what IF Nicola Sturgeon had NOT resigned, but instead dared the coppers to do their worst? Then proclaimed she was victim of sinister British-Tory-Labour-Masonic-Etc-Etc Conspiracy!
Heck, a Big Fish like Sturgeon might could STILL pull it off . . . or least give it a go. Or could she?
Not sure how HMRC would cope with the massive fall in income, but I would absolutely welcome the collapse in my driving costs that would bring about.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/journey-time-statistics-england-2019/journey-time-statistics-england-2019#journey-times-to-key-services
With politically appointed judges opponents must have a field day. I recall in one of the lawsuits Trump filed his team tried to get the judge to recuse on the basis they'd be appointed by Clinton due to alleged bias, but I imagine he has not argued about judges appointed by him (though of course plenty of those ruled against many of his spurious legal challenges before!)
(I actually doubt anyone will be convicted as a result of that investigation)
Amazing to think that's with barely any cycle provision, and pretty terrible public transport.
Then again, their rules did actually prevent a candidate likely to win from running from jail before, but then reversed it all anyway so who the hell knows.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.